Wongalethu Maquthu 

Last week, the Durban University of Technology (DUT) postponed its House Committee elections due to some candidates failing to produce their academic records.

“Please be informed that due to unavailability of academic results for certain candidates, the House Committee Voting has been postponed,” DUT said in its statement.

In section 9.2 of DUT’s current Student Representative Council (SRC) constitution, a student must obtain a minimum pass of 50 % for each subject registered for in the previous year.

“A new voting schedule will be announced once the Department of Student Housing and Res-Life has the academic results of ALL candidates,” it was stated in the official statement.

However, the South African Students Congress (SASCO) at DUT and the EFF Student Command (EFFSC) claim this is not just about failing to produce academic records.

Sbonelo Zwane, SASCO Acting Secretary at DUT, said none of SASCO’s candidates failed to produce their academic records.  However, he said the postponement of the elections is an advantage for them because it gives them a chance to contest the election.

“We couldn’t contest in the original election because some of the links were not working,” Zwane added.

Buntu Faku, DUT EFFSC chairman, said that obtaining a student’s academic record is easy to do, because once the marks are out all a student needs to do is go to the relevant department.

“The reason these elections have been postponed is because DUT failed to implement the online voting system,” said Faku.

Picture: DUT